


Mental Modus Operandi

by tailor31415



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, introspective, minor spoilers for comic storylines (if you don't know about the character death in them), short but angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 01:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2131860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tailor31415/pseuds/tailor31415
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because their story is a tragedy. And tragedies don’t have happy endings, no matter what you try to convince yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mental Modus Operandi

 He had the thought often when they were young. The first time he met him, Bucky looked over the scrappy, wheezing little kid and thought, ‘He’s gonna die.’ Of course, that first time, back when he was naïve enough, no, back when he was stupid enough, the thought was followed by, ‘– if I’m not by his side.’

And then they were growing up and barely a day passed that he managed to avoid thinking, ‘He’s gonna die, he’s gonna die if I’m not with him.’

And every time Bucky found him on the streets, nose bloody and teeth grit in a feral grimace, he shook his head and thought, exasperated, ‘He’s gonna die without me’ and forced his way through the fray to Steve’s side.

Until those winters when Bucky had to hold Steve close in his arms to support his neck and chest as Steve shook and shook and shook apart, body wracked with vicious coughs.

And he buried his face in that sweaty blond hair and thought, ‘He’s gonna die and I can’t do a thing.’

But he always pulled through somehow, taking ragged breaths every time Bucky held his own because he thought this was it, this was the end. Every single time, he kept breathing to suffer through another day.

And then came the time that Steve quietly confided, “Buck, I don’t think I see color like everybody else.” And Bucky thought, ‘He’s gonna die without ever seeing how his eyes are as blue as the sky or his hair as gold as the sun and I can’t do a thing about it.’

But he just pulled him in close with an arm around his shoulders, squeezing tight as he said, “Don’t gotta see color to be an artist – what about them minimalist guys?”

So he picked up extra shifts so Steve could take his classes and held his pencils when Steve had assignments in color, passing them over one by one when Steve pointed at things he would never see the true shade of.

And Bucky grit his teeth and forced them through winter after winter and summer after summer with never enough money in an apartment that was too small, too cold, too musky, too dim for someone like Steve. But it was all they could afford and he tried to ignore himself every time he thought, ‘He’s gonna die in this tiny room and there’s nothing I can do.’

But he always plastered on a smile, puffed up his chest and swaggered around drawling out nonsense like if he acted as if he owned the world, maybe he could keep Steve alive a little bit longer.

Until he received his orders to go overseas, like a fist to his gut out of the blue. And he staggered around the streets for a day in utter disbelief, carefully going nowhere Steve could chance upon him, and finally nodded to himself. Because he wasn’t about to just let Steve die back here alone.

So in all the time he had left, he found all the nice girls he could and convinced them to give his best pal a shot because the thought of Steve rasping out his last breaths with no one to hold his hand tight was more than he could bear.

And when he was standing on the pier of Coney Island, watching the way the electric lights made Steve seem pale as the moon, he swallowed hard against the thought of ‘He’s going to die without me by his side.”

But across the sea, crouching in a trench with men moaning around him and then strapped to a table as a scalpel came close once again, he thought, ‘He’s going to die far away from here,’ and he laughed through the pain and the screams and the nightmares.

 

So, when he blinked and realized it was Steve standing next to him, it naturally followed he immediately thought this must be heaven, because Steve was healthy, Steve was glowing, Steve was, Steve was –

Steve was standing in the same room he had been in for so long, Steve was shouting down at him that they needed to go, Steve was frowning over him as if he thought Bucky was the one that was going to fall to pieces this time.

And for the first time in his life, Bucky Barnes thought, ‘He’s gonna live.’ Even in this hellhole, even if he did not quite understand what had been done to his friend, Bucky knew that if Steve could make it this far alive, he would make it all the way.

And then, later, walking at the side of a man that was only familiar deep down now, he thought something new, something he knew was terrible, and he was almost disgusted at himself for even thinking it. But, he looked at who his friend had become and thought bitterly, ‘He’s gonna make it outta here alive, and I’m gonna die here’ with a sinking heart and a tightness in his throat.

And, Steve, Steve would be fine. Steve would live on after that – it was always Bucky would had tried to imagine life without his best friend and could never imagine a purpose for himself.

It was his job to be by Steve’s side, until the day one of them died – he had just never imagined it would be him to go first. So, when a doctor asked him seriously if he wanted a written discharge, because of what had happened during his long stay in that camp, Bucky looked him firmly in the eyes and refused.

So, when he fell from that train, even as the air whipping by stole the breath from his lungs, Bucky’s only thought was that Steve was going to make it, Steve would be fine, Steve would – Steve would – Steve –

‘He’s gonna live.’

 

It was decades then before Bucky Barnes had another thought of his own.

Decades of Bucky Barnes as only asset and Winter Soldier, and a few days of wondering at why the thought of ‘Eliminate the target’ and ‘He’s my mission’ felt so strange.

Decades before Bucky Barnes clawed his way past the Winter Soldier to look out his own eyes again, to see Steve dropping his shield.

And he had told him so many times not to be an idiot and to just hold the stupid thing and here he was dropping it and then Steve –

Steve was falling out into open air and Bucky’s breath caught in his throat because, ‘He’s gonna live, he’s gonna live, he has to live!’

So he launched himself after the man and fought with his strange, modified body in the depths of the swirling water, and forced himself to hold on to Steve even with all the weight of him pulling Bucky down.

Because he had done this before – back when he had been stupid enough to think ‘He’s gonna die without me,’ back when they had been kids and Steve had swallowed too much water and Bucky had dragged him out with his own lungs burning in his chest. He had done this before, so he pulled him in to the shore, and as the Winter Soldier started to cloud his mind again, he thought, trying to reassure himself even as his body stepped away, ‘He’s going to live.’

 

And it was a long, long time before he thought anything else on the matter. Long years spent apart from, then by the side of, the man who had once been his best friend. Long years spent watching Steve’s back and having his back watched, going into battle at his side and returning home to settle next to him on the couch in the evenings.

And then, and then, he had a thought he had never imagined he would have again.

He had it when a heavy weight fell on his arms, something warm dripping down his side and pooling beneath his legs.

He had it as blue eyes grew dim and the body he grasped shuddered with the man’s attempt to draw breath.

And he had it even as he remembered all those times when they were young and he had sat at the side of their bed to squeeze Steve’s hand tight as he wheezed through the night, remembered those times he had propped Steve up on his own chest for warmth, to pull him and whispered in his ear, “Breathe with me, Steve, breathe.”

And he had it as he clutched Steve tight against his chest again to feel him draw those desperate breaths, but he could not open his mouth and speak the words.

And all he could think, just like those winter nights, those dark, dark days he thought had been left far behind them, was, ‘He’s going to die.’

‘He’s going to die and I can’t do a thing.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed(?). Kudos/comments always appreciated!


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